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The  Deity  of  Christ 


An  Address  delivered  at  Northfield 
With  Three  Supplementary  Notes 


By 

ROBERT  E.  SPEER 


^ 


New  York         Chicago         Toronto 

Fleming  H.   Revell  Company 

London        and        Edinburgh 


\ 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
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London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


The  Deity  of  Christ 

CHRISTIANITY  is  the  only  one  of 
the  great  religions  of  the  world 
which  calls  itself  by  the  name  of 
its  founder.  Other  great  religions  are 
named  after  their  founders  by  us.  They 
are  not  so  named  by  their  own  adherents. 
This  is  not  a  mere  accident ;  it  is  a  fact  of 
the  deepest  significance.  To  be  sure,  tlie 
name  Christian  was  given  originally  by 
enemies  but  it  was  given  by  them  because 
from  without  they  had  already  discerned 
the  essential  and  distinguishing  character  ul 
the  new  religion,  and  had  been  impressed 
by  the  inseparable  connection  which,  they 
saw,  existed  between  it  and  its  founder  Jesus 
Christ.  The  disciples  of  the  new  religion 
presently  accepted  the  name  as  the  mobt 
appropriate  name  possible  for  them  and 
their  faith.  They  themselves  were  aware 
that  the  relationship  in  which  they  stood 
JO  Jesus  Christ  was  the  central  and  funda- 
[5] 


''''^'helDtity   of  Christ 

mental  thing  in  their  religion.  So  long  as 
He  had  been  on  earth  their  religion  had 
consisted  in  personally  following  Him,  in 
finding  their  fellowship  in  His  company, 
in  drawing  their  nourishment  from  His 
words,  and  in  resting  their  hearts  on  the 
peace  and  quiet  which  they  found  with 
Him.  And  after  He  was  gone  they  per- 
ceived that  their  religion  consisted  in  a 
relationship  to  Him  of  a  far  more  vital  and 
wonderful  kind  than  they  had  understood 
while  He  was  here.  For  now  they  real- 
ized that  their  religion  did  not  consist  in 
the  mere  memory  of  a  good  man  who  was 
gone,  in  the  effort  to  recall  the  things 
that  He  had  said,  and  to  comfort  their 
hearts  with  recollections  of  joyful  hours 
which  they  had  had  with  Him  in  the  days 
of  His  flesh.  They  realized  that  their  re- 
ligion consisted  in  a  living  relationship  to 
Him,  as  still  a  living  person  with  them, 
which  their  faith  was  not  a  recollection  of 
what  Jesus  had  taught,  or  the  mere  mem- 
ory of  a  lovely  human  character,  but  a  liv- 
ing relationship  to  an  abiding,  supernat- 
ural Person. 

[6] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

This  is  the  fundamental  thing  in  Chris- 
tianity. The  name  **  Christian  '*  is  only  a 
sign  of  that  which  is  most  radical  and 
essential  in  its  character.  The  main  prob- 
lem of  Christianity  is  this  of  Jesus  Christ : 
Who  was  He,  and  what  are  we  to  think  of 
Him?  We  cannot  do  any  thinking  about 
Christianity  at  all  that  is  direct  or  ade- 
quate without  coming  at  once  to  think  of 
the  problem  of  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ, 
who  stands  at  the  heart  of  His  religion, 
without  whom  the  Christian  religion  is  not 
the  religion  of  Christ. 

I  know  there  are  many  voices  to-day 
which  tell  us  that  this  is  not  necessary.  I 
was  in  a  gathering  a  little  while  ago  made 
up  largely  of  college  presidents  and  pro- 
fessors, in  which  the  subject  under  dis- 
cussion was  the  evangelical  basis  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  in  our 
colleges  and  universities.  It  was  a  little 
company  of  fifteen  or  twenty  men.  One 
of  the  college  presidents  in  the  group,  a 
minister  in  an  evangelical  church,  ex- 
pressed it  as  his  own  opinion  that  the 
question  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ 
[7] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

was  a  matter  of  metaphysics  about  which 
we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  and  about 
which  we  had  no  right  to  burden  the  minds 
and  consciences  of  the  young  men  and 
women  in  our  colleges  and  universities. 
We  certainly  had  no  right,  he  felt,  to  make 
a  dividing  intellectual  issue  of  it. 

Now  if  it  is  meant  that  the  question  of 
the  deity  of  Christ  is  a  matter  of  meta- 
physics in  the  sense  that  it  lies  beyond 
merely  physical  and  material  things,  of 
course  it  is  indeed  a  matter  of  metaphysics. 
But  everything,  for  that  matter,  of  any  sig- 
nificance is  metaphysical :  friendship  and 
love  and  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness 
are  all  metaphysical  also.  Everything  that 
is  worth  while,  everything  that  is  real,  all 
those  unseen  things  that  are  the  eternal 
things,  are  also  metaphysical.  If  that  was 
what  the  speaker  meant,  of  course  he  was 
right.  Christ's  divinity  also  is  metaphys- 
ical. But  then,  also,  if  that  was  what  he 
meant  he  was  wrong.  Because  these  are 
the  only  things  that  it  is  really  worth  our 
while  to  think  about  at  all.  Indeed,  you 
cannot  do  any  thinking  which  is  not  meta- 

[8] 


The    Deity   of  C hrist 

physical  in  that  sense.  But  if  he  meant 
that  the  deity  of  Christ  was  metaphysical 
in  the  sense  that  it  was  impractical,  that  it 
went  out  into  the  speculative  regions  where 
life  is  not  lived,  then  he  was  utterly  and 
absolutely  wrong ;  for  nothing  can  be  more 
real,  more  practical,  more  near,  more  fun- 
damental for  every  one  of  us  than  the 
question  of  what  we  are  to  think  and  what 
we  are  to  do  wnth  the  person  of  Jesus 
hrist,  who  declared  Himself  to  be,  and  is 
believed  by  the  Church  to  be,  the  very  Son 
of  the  living  God. 

We  simply  must  think  about  that  prob- 
lem.    We    must   think  about  it,   for  one 
thing,  because  Christ  can  have  no  mean- 
ing for  feeling   unless   He   has   a  mean- 
ig  also  for  thought.     As  mature  beings 
e  cannot  attach  a  feeling  value  to  any- 
ling  to  which  we  cannot  attach  a  thought 
ilue.     That  song  we  were  joining  in  a 
moment  ago,    "More   Love   to  Thee,   O 
Christ/'  has  no  meaning  whatever  except 
the    meaning    derived   from   the   thought 
due  we  attach  to  Jesus  Christ.     If  you 
think  of  Christ  merely  as  you  would  think 
[9] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

of  Julius  Caesar,  then  the  song  has  no  more 
significance  than  if  we  were  singing  **  More 
love  to  thee,  O  JuUus  Csesar/'  All  the 
meaning  springs  from  the  thought  value 
we  put  upon  Jesus  Christ.  Those  men 
and  women  who  tell  us  to-day  that  we  can 
keep  Christ  for  religious  values  even  when 
we  have  lost  Christ  in  His  thought  value 
are  preaching  an  absolutely  fallacious  and 
meaningless  gospel ;  for  Christ  will  stay 
with  us  in  our  religious  life.  He  will  stay 
with  us  as  an  adequate  living  value  in 
our  hearts  only  so  long  as  we  give  Him 
His  rightful  place  in  our  thoughts  about 
Him  and  His  person. 

In  the  second  place,  we  have  to  think 
about  Christ  and  who  He  was  because  we 
are  thinking  beings,  and  wherever  we  go 
we  have  to  take  our  minds  along  with  us. 
I  cannot  go  any  place  and  leave  my  mind 
behind  me.  I  cannot  carry  my  body  or 
my  emotions  into  a  certain  attitude  towards 
Christ  without  also  carrying  my  rational 
processes  along  with  me.  I  cannot  take 
myself  apart.  I  am  a  unit.  I  can  only 
feel  about  those  things  that  I  think  about 

[lO] 


The   Deity  of  Christ 

and  will  about.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
have  any  relationship  to  Jesus  Christ  what- 
ever except  as  I  think  about  Christ  and 
arrange  my  mind  with  reference  to  Him. 
It  is  intellectually  maudlin  and  foolish  to 
say  "Christian"  and  ** Christianity "  un- 
less we  mean  something  by  those  words. 
What  do  we  mean  ? 

In  the  third  place,  we  have  got  to  think 
about  Christ  because  He  is  a  fact.  You 
cannot  get  rid  of  a  fact  by  saying  **  I  will 
not  think  about  it"  You  look  back  across 
the  years  and  there  stands  Jesus  Christ 
demanding  that  you  reckon  with  Him,  that 
\  ou  give  Him  His  place,  that  you  think 
about  Him,  and  relate  Him  to  all  the  other 
facts  that  you  know.  Jesus  Christ  is  not 
a  doctrine ;  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  theory  or 

myth ;  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  mere  imagi- 
nation of  men  of  our  day ;  Jesus  Christ  is 
a  great  fact  in  history  and  in  the  life  of  men ; 
nd  you  and  I  are  bound  to  think  about  that 
fact,  to  account  for  it  and  value  it,  to  deter- 
mine what  the  quality  of  that  fact  is,  what 
the  relations  of  that  fact  are  to  our  present 
life  to-day,  and  to  all  the  life  of  humanity. 


The    Deity    of  Christ 

'i 

And  once  more,  we  have  to  think  about 
this  question  because  it  was  the  only  ques- 
tion that  interested  Jesus  Christ.  So  many 
times  we  are  told  to-day  that  it  does  not 
matter  what  men  thinks  that  it  only  matters 
what  men  do.  It  is  a  wonderful  contrast  to 
turn  back  to  the  Gospels  and  find  Jesus  re- 
versing this  emphasis.  What  men  thought 
was  what  interested  Him.  He  had  no  in- 
terest in  a  man^s  clothes ;  he  had  a  sec- 
ondary interest  in  a  man^s  external  acts. 
What  did  interest  Him  was  what  men  had 
inside  their  hearts,  because  from  within 
flowed  all  those  great  forces  that  were  to 
determine  the  outer  life.  And  so  His  great 
question,  as  He  went  up  and  down  the 
world  mingling  with  men,  was  the  simple 
question,  **  What  do  you  think  about  Me? 
Who  am  I  ?  ^^ 

So,  if  we  have  never  done  any  clear, 
consecutive  thinking  about  Jesus  Christ, 
we  ought  to  begin  to  do  that  thinking 
now.  There  will  come  a  time  in  our  lives 
when  we  will  have  to  do  it.  We  must 
reckon  with  Jesus  Christ  and  determine 
for  ourselves  whose  Son  we  believe  Him 

[12] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

to  be,  and  what  conviction  regarding  His 
person  we  are  to  hold.  Well  would  it  be 
for  us  if  to-day  we  should  go  straight  home 
to  what  is  not  only  the  fundamental  prob- 
lem of  Christianity  but  the  very  bottom- 
most issue  of  our  human  life  and  face  for 
ourselves  that  old  question  :  Who  is  Jesus 
Christ?  What  do  we  believe  Him  to  be? 
Was  He  in  any  unique  sense  the  one  Son 
of  the  Living  God  ?  And  I  want  to  state 
in  the  simplest  way  I  can  the  grounds  for 
my  own  personal  faith  in  the  deity  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ 

L  I  believe,  first  oi  all,  in  the  deity  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  because  of  His  char- 
acter;  for  it  seems  to  me,  in  the  great 
language  of  Horace  Bushnell,  that  "the 
character  of  Jesus  forbids  His  possible 
classification  with  men/'  The  argument 
of  the  whole  volume,  "  Nature  and  the 
Supernatural,"  is  concentrated  by  Bush- 
nell, in  that  one  chapter,  **The  Character 
I  Jesus  Forbidding  His  Possible  Classifi- 
cation with  Men.'*  For  Christ  was  such  a 
Man  that  He  could  not  have  been  a  mere 
man.     He  was  a  Man  so  great,  so  perfect, 

[13] 


T'he   Deity    of  Christ 

that  He  must  have  been  more  than  just  a 
man.  Now  we  can  put  the  matter  in  a 
very  summary  fashion  at  this  point.  If 
our  Lord  was  only  a  man,  if  His  char- 
acter was  merely  human,  then  Bowdoin, 
Yale,  Bryn  Mawr,  and  Vassar  ought  to  be 
turning  out  better  men  and  women  than 
He  was.  If  our  Lord  was  only  a  man, 
it  is  strange  that  the  nineteenth  century 
cannot  produce  a  better  one.  He  was  born 
in  an  obscure  and  contemptible  province. 
He  grew  up  in  no  cultured  and  refined 
community.  He  was  the  Child  of  a  poor 
peasants  home,  of  a  subject  race.  Yet 
He  rises  sheer  above  all  mankind,  the  one 
commanding  moral  character  of  humanity. 
Now,  if  Jesus  was  all  that  just  as  a  mere 
man,  the  world  should  long  ago  have  ad- 
vanced beyond  Him. 

It  would  not  be  so  if  it  were  a  question 
of  intellectual  genius,  because  we  all  realize 
that  intellectual  genius  is  a  matter  of  en- 
dowment and  gift,  and  a  man  cannot  be 
held  responsible  for  not  being  as  able  a 
man  intellectually  as  another.  But  we  all 
feel  that  each  of  us  can  be  held  responsible 
[14] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

for  not  being  as  good  a  man  as  any  other 
man.  We  know  that  moral  character  is  a 
duty  of  each  one  of  us,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing in  perfect  moral  goodness  which  our 
own  conscience  does  not  tell  us  we  are 
bound  ourselves  to  attain.  And  so  I 
challenge  you  who  believe  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  merely  a  man,  to  reconcile 
that  belief  with  the  fact  that  you  are 
not  a  better  character  than  He  was.  With 
nineteen  hundred  years  of  His  influence 
upon  the  world,  with  advantages  pos- 
sessed by  us  such  as  He  never  dreamed 
of  in  His  day,  if  Christ's  character  was 
purely  human,  it  ought  long  ago  to  have 
been  surpassed  and  there  ought  to  be  in 
the  world  to-day  many  men  and  women 
who  are  superior  in  their  character  to  Him. 
This  is  a  crude,  though  I  think  proper 
dilemma.  If  Christ  was  only  a  man  we 
are  bound  to  surpass  Him.  If  He  was 
more  than  a  man,  we  are  bound  to  obey 
Him.  I  do  not  mean  to  let  the  point  go 
merely  with  this  general  statement,  how- 
ever. I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Son  of  God,  and  proved  to  be  such  by  the 

[15] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

elements  of  character  in  Him  not  to  be 
found  in  men. 

(i)  First  of  all,  there  was  the  supernat- 
uralness  of  His  claims.  '*  I  am  come  that 
ye  might  have  life.''  "I  am  the  light  of 
the  world."  "  I  am  not  come  to  condemn, 
but  to  save  the  world.''  **  I  am  the  way, 
and  the  truth,  and  the  life :  no  man 
Cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me."  Now 
a  man  cannot  talk  that  way.  If  you 
should  say  in  reply  that  the  words  I  have 
quoted  are  from  the  Gospel  of  John,  and 
that  they  do  not  actually  represent  what 
Jesus  said  but  only  what  John  afterwards 
put  into  His  lips,  I  should  demur;  but 
without  stopping  to  do  so,  I  would  say  now, 
Very  well,  turn  to  the  Gospel  of  Matthew 
and  find  the  passage  which  criticism  still 
leaves  to  us,  in  which  Christ  says  just  as 
much  as  He  says  anywhere  in  the  Gospel 
of  John:  **A11  things  have  been  given 
unto  Me  of  My  Father  :  and  no  man  know- 
eth  the  Son,  save  the  Father ;  and  no  man 
knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal 
Him.  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour 
[16] 


'      'The   Deity   of  Christ 

and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest.     Take  My  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn 
of  Me;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart: 
1    ye   shall    find  rest  unto  your  souls." 
1  iiere  is  supernatural  claim  here  just  such 
as  you  will  find  in  the  deepest  of  our  Lord's 
i^ed  utterances  in  the  Gospel  of  John. 
Ur,  turn  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.     It 
is  full  of  unique  self-assertion.     Who  is  this 
ing  man  who  stands  on  the  shores  of 
Galilean  Sea  and  sets  aside  the  doc- 
iiiijes  of  the  fathers?     **  Ye  have  heard  it 
said  so  and  so,  but  I  say  unto  you  ;^'  and 
who  closes  His  discourse  with  the  declara- 
tion, "  Many  will  say  unto  Me  in  that  day, 
Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not  cast  out  devils  in 
Thy  name  ?  and   I  will   say  unto   them,  I 
never  knew  you,  depart  from  Me.'*     Who 
is  this  who  thus  sets  Himself  up  as  the 
■very  touchstone  of  human  life  in  the  day  of 
judgment? 

Our  Lord  by  His  claims  set  Himself  in 
a  class  absolutely  apart  from  men.  Now 
He  either  made  these  claims  or  He  did  not 
make  them.  If  He  did  not  make  them, 
then  we  know  nothing  whatever  about  His 


The    Deity    of  Christ 

life,  and  what  took  place  in  the  past,  for 
the  evidence  of  the  fact  that  Christ  made 
these  claims  is  as  good  as  any  historical 
evidence  that  we  possess.  If  He  did  make 
these  claims,  they  were  either  true  or  false. 
If  they  were  false,  then  Christ  instead  of 
being  a  man  of  high  character,  as  all  men 
have  recognized  Him  to  be,  was  a  mere 
falsifier,  an  impostor.  But  if  they  were 
true,  then  He  was  as  He  claimed  to  be,  the 
Son  of  God. 

(2)  Observe  further,  not  only  did  Jesus 
put  forth  supernatural  claims,  but  those 
claims  were  attested  by  our  Lord's  own 
consciousness.  Let  any  of  us  set  our- 
selves up  to  be  divine  and  see  how  quickly 
we  will  fall  down  to  the  earth  from  any 
such  pinnacle.  Our  own  deeds  would  belie 
us  and  our  own  consciousness  break  down 
under  the  palpable  falsehood.  In  Acre, 
Syria,  the  head  of  the  Behais,  Abbas 
Eflendi,  has  actually  claimed  to  be  God 
the  Father  incarnate  on  earth.  But  he 
simply  could  not  carry  it  through.  He 
could  not  bear  himself  godlikely.  But 
we    look    on   the   outer   and   even   more 

[18  J 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

on  the  inner  life  of  Christ.  It  actually  sus- 
tained the  tremendous,  worid-upheaving 
claims  that  He  put  forth  to  be  the  unique, 
supernatural  Son  of  the  living  God.  Men 
are  turning  now  as  never  before  to  the 
study  of  Christ's  consciousness,  the  most 
wonderful  problem  in  human  history,  and 
they  are  finding  in  the  inner  thought  of 
Christ  and  the  inner  life  of  Christ,  in  the 
integrity  of  it,  the  way  in  which  He  was 
able  to  carry  through  to  the  end  these 
tremendous  claims  of  His,  a  new  argument 
for  the  truth  and  reality  of  these  claims. 
How  clearly  it  shone  out  at  the  last 
when  hanging  upon  the  cross,  with  the  two 
thieves  on  either  side  of  Him  I  He  died 
like  the  God  He  had  claimed  to  be,  so  that 
the  hard-hearted  centurion,  who  stood  and 
watched  Him  die,  said  to  himself,  "  Well,  1 
have  been  by  many  a  dying  man,  but  I 
never  saw  one  who  died  like  this.  Truly 
this  man  was  the  Son  of  God."  But  the 
manner  of  His  death  only  consummated 
the  sustained  sincerity  of  His  life,  I  be- 
lieve in  the  deity  of  Christ  on  the  score  of 
His  character  not  only  because   He  put 

[19] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

forth  claims  to  be  supernaturally  unique, 
but  because  His  own  inner  spiritual  experi- 
ences supported  and  vindicated  these 
claims. 

(3)  And  because  of  the  universality  and 
eternity  of  His  character,  I  believe  in  the 
cleity  of  Jesus  Christ.  Of  course  He  had 
to  be  born  in  a  given  age,  among  a  given 
people,  and  He  was  born  away  back  in 
the  first  century  and  in  the  Jewish  race. 
It  was  impossible  that  there  should  be  an 
incarnation  without  its  being  somewhere 
and  somewhen.  But  the  wonderful  thing 
is,  that  though  Christ  came  in  a  given  age 
and  in  a  given  race  He  transcends  that 
age  and  that  race  and  is  felt  by  every  race 
and  every  age  to  be  its  ideal  and  its  Lord, 
the  satisfaction  of  all  its  spiritual  needs. 
We  see  this  aspect  of  His  character  illus- 
trated in  the  universality  and  eternity  of 
the  sympathies  that  find  expression  in  His 
parables.  Some  of  you  have  seen,  per- 
haps, a  little  book  of  illustrations  of  the 
parables  that  appeared  a  short  while  ago. 
They  were  by  a  modern  artist.  He  had 
taken  eight  or  ten  of  the  parables  out  of 

[20] 


The   Deity  of  Christ 

their  old  Oriental  setting  and  given  them 
a  modern  setting.  One  of  them  was  a 
picture  of  a  girl  sitting  in  a  restaurant 
with  wine  glasses  on  the  table  before  her. 
Another  girl,  a  Salvation  Army  lass,  was 
coming  through  with  her  tambourine,  col- 
lecting gifts.  Beneath  were  the  words: 
"  Five  of  them  were  wise,  and  five  of  them 
were  foolish."  Another  was  the  picture  of 
the  Pharisee  and  the  publican.  The  poor 
man  was  sitting  in  ragged  clothes  in  the 
last  pew  of  the  church,  and  the  wealthy 
man,  standing  in  his  self-contentment  and 
power,  was  taking  the  collection  and  hold- 
ing the  plate  at  a  distance  for  this  poor 
man  to  put  his  coin  in.  Another  was  the 
picture  of  the  man  with  the  talents.  A 
ung  man  sat  alone  at  his  club,  with 
I'owed  head,  while  round  about  him  the 
air  was  filled  with  figures  of  others  who 
had  toiled,  while  the  opportunities  of  his 
life  had  been  lost  and  thrown  away ;  and 
beneath  was  the  simple  verse  taken  from 
our  Lord's  parable  of  the  talents:  "And 
he  went  and  hid  his  talent  in  a  napkin  and 
buried  it  in  the  ground.'*     These  parables 

[21] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

come  driving  right  home  into  the  heart  of 
our  modern  life  as  though  they  had  been 
spoken  to-day.  And  these  parables  of  our 
Lord's,  spoken  nineteen  hundred  years  ago, 
cast  first  of  all  in  His  native  setting  in  the 
East,  but  always  and  everywhere  alive, 
are  only  typical  of  the  universality  and 
eternity  of  His  living  sympathies.  He  is 
the  world's  still  distant  ethical  ic^eal.  He 
is  still  the  friend  of  all.  The  first  century 
Jew  is  the  w^hole  world's  and  all  the  cen- 
turies* Saviour. 

(4)  And  from  the  perfect  balance  of 
His  character  I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Divine  Son  of  God.  Every  one  has 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  Christ,  but 
no  one  has  all  of  them.  We  develop  one 
good  quality  at  the  expense  or  the  atrophy 
or  the  stricture  of  some  other  quality.  Our 
Lord  bound  up  in  Himself  all  the  different 
qualities  of  the  perfect  human  character  as 
no  other  man  has  ever  done. 

(5)  But  not  to  prolong  an  analysis  of 
His  character  unduly,  think  of  only  one 
other  outstanding  fact  in  it.  I  mean  the 
fact   of  His  sinlessness.     No  other  great 

[22] 


T^he   Deity   of  Christ 

teacher  ever  dared  to  utter  Jesus*  chal- 
lenge :  **  Which  of  you  convinceth  Me  of 
sin.'*  No  one  has  thought  of  claiming 
sinlessness  for  other  great  religious  teach- 
ers. In  none  of  the  sacred  books  of  any 
other  religion  is  its  founder  represented  as 
a  sinless  man.  The  very  conception  of  a 
sinless  character  was  never  invented  by 
anybody.  It  only  came  to  men's  minds 
as  they  saw  it  worked  forth  in  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  There  is  mar- 
vellous significance  in  this  fact.  He  was 
the  holiest  man  that  ever  lived.  Every- 
body looks  back  upon  Him  as  the  most 

nderfuUy  perfect  character.  And  He 
was  the  one  Man  who  was  never  penitent, 
who  never  asked  God  to  forgive  Him  for 

vthing,  who  walked  right  through  life 
unrepentant,  without  ever  being  aware  that 
He  had  done  or  thought  anything  wrong. 
"Father,  forgive  them,*'  He  prayed,  but 

ver  "  Father,  forgive  Me.*'  Find  a  single 
great  human  character  whose  goodness 
does  not  rest  on  a  sense  of  utter  personal 
unworthiness,  whose  goodness  does  not 
spring  from  the  deep  realization  of  having 

[23] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

been  forgiven  much  by  the  great  and  lov- 
ing God.  But  here  is  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
the  one  character  to  whom  we  all  look 
back  as  the  best  of  men,  absolutely  im- 
penitent, and  He  died  impenitent  because 
there  was  nothing  in  His  life  for  which  He 
needed  to  ask  forgiveness.  If  you  can  be- 
lieve that  this  character  was  merely  human, 
then  you  are  a  very  credulous  soul.  To 
believe  that  this  character  was  merely  hu- 
man is  a  belief  more  wonderful  far,  involv- 
ing more  strain  to  human  faith,  than  the 
simple  conviction  that  we  can  account  for 
the  character  of  Christ  by  believing  Him 
to  be  what  He  claimed  to  be ;  namely,  the 
Son  of  the  Living  God. 

II.  In  the  second  place,  I  believe  in  the 
deity  of  Christ  because  of  His  teaching  ;  not 
only  because  of  the  form  and  authority  of 
His  teaching — though  that  was  wonderful 
enough  to  impress  in  the  deepest  way  the 
imagination  of  those  who  heard  Him — for 
He  taught,  as  Matthew  recorded  in  com- 
ment on  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as  one 
having  authority  and  not  as  the  Scribes. 
**  This  man  spake,"  said  those  sent  by  the 

[24] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

Sanhedrin  to  arrest  Him,  **  as  never  man 
spake."  But  I  am  thinking  now  not  of  the 
form  and  the  power  of  His  teaching,  but  of 
the  substance  of  it.  I  believe  the  substance 
of  Christ's  teaching  sets  Him  ofl  absolutely 
from   the   class  of  mere  human  teachers. 

(i)  First  of  all,  consider  His  teaching 
regarding  God.  Where  did  He  find  out 
what  He  knew  about  God?  He  taught 
things  about  God  which  the  world  never 
knew  before,  and  which  the  world  had  not 
been  able  to  discover  for  itself.  To-day, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  almost  the  whole  con- 
tent of  our  knowledge  of  God  is  due  to  the 
teaching,  the  life,  and  the  example  of  Jesus 
Christ  There  is  something  to  be  learned 
about  God  from  the  heavens  and  the  world 
round  about  us.  But  in  the  case  of  people 
who  deny  the  divinity  of  Christ  and  who 
say  they  believe  in  God,  that  God  in 
whom  they  believe  is  the  God  about 
whom   they   would  know  little  or  nothing 

j  esus  Christ  had  not  come  and  revealed 
Him  by  what  He  was,  as  well  as  by  what 
He  said.  You  cannot  reveal  God  by 
words ;  you  cannot  bring  to  men  an  idea 

[25] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

entirely  outside  their  experience  simply  by 
talking  to  them  in  words  ;  you  have  got  to 
show  it  to  them  in  life.  Christ  could  never 
have  revealed  God  by  a  mere  doctrine. 
He  could  not  by  any  possibility  have 
broken  open  the  shell  of  man^s  limited  no- 
tions of  God  and  expanded  these  notions 
to  the  great  realities  to  which  Christ 
did  expand  them  by  merely  proclaiming 
intellectual  opinions  concerning  God.  You 
can  only  give  men  a  new  idea  of  God  by 
showing  it  to  them  in  life.  This  is  the  way 
you  do  it  to-day.  There  is  no  other  way. 
It  is  what  Christ  did  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago, — not  by  talking  about  this  ideal,  but 
by  Himself  being  this  God  in  front  of  their 
eyes. 

And  here  we  come  upon  what  it  seems 
to  me  is  the  saddest  irony  of  all  human 
history;  that  Jesus  Christ  Himself  has 
created  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  men's 
faith  in  His  deity.  You  ask  men  why  they 
do  not  believe  in  the  incarnation  to-day, 
and  they  tell  you  that  they  cannot  believe 
that  their  God,  so  spiritual,  so  high,  could 
be  brought  down  into  humanity.     Where 

[26] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

did  they  get  that  God  so  spmtual  and  so 
high  ?  Why,  out  of  the  God  who  was 
incarnate  in  humanity.  The  mere  fact  of 
this  larger  idea  of  God  which  Christ  by  the 
incarnation  gave  is  now  made  by  many 
men  the  reason  why  they  will  not  believe  in 
^Hrist  and  the  incarnation  through  which 
ne  that  idea  of  God  ever  could  have 
lie  to  us.  You  and  I  would  not  have 
h  difficulty  in  believing  in  Christ  as 
^  id,  if  Christ  had  not  been  God.  It  was 
the  very  fact  that  Christ  was  God  that 
gave  us  these  notions  of  God  that  have 
created,  I  will  not  say  wholly,  but  in  large 
part,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  our 
faith  in  the  incarnation.  Surely  the  man 
who  will  sit  down  and  contemplate  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ  and  think  all 
the  implications  of  the  situation  through 
will  at  last  say  to  himself  exacUy  what 
Thomas  said  when  his  eyes  at  last  were 
onened,  **  My  Lord  and  my  God." 

2)  And  I  believe  in  the  deity  of  Christ 
not  only  because  of  His  teaching  about  God 
but  also  because  of  His  teaching  about 
man.     He  told  us  things  about  man  that 

[27] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

we  never  knew  before,  that  are  not  known 
in  the  world  to-day  except  where  the  in- 
fluence of  Christ^s  life  has  reached,  bring- 
ing them  to  man.  It  was  only  Christ  who 
told  man  what  a  good  man  may  be  and 
must  be,  who  gave  man  his  ideal  of  his 
own  duty  and  destiny  and  possibility  of 
character.  It  was  only  Christ  who  came 
near  to  man  and  assured  him  of  the  great 
spiritual  possibility  and  duty  of  unity  with 
his  fellows,  that  has  become  one  of  the 
great  words  of  our  time,  but  of  which  in 
reality  we  have  come  to  conceive  only 
through  the  influence  of  Jesus  Christ.  A 
German  ethnologist  once  said  that  the 
deepest  thing  ever  uttered  by  Saint  Paul 
is  that  word  of  his  about  there  being  in 
Jesus  Christ  **  neither  male  nor  female, 
Greek  nor  barbarian,  bond  nor  free." 
These  were  the  three  great  lines  of  cleavage 
that  cursed  the  world  before  Christ,  that 
curse  the  world  everywhere  now  outside  of 
Christ.  That  curse  was  obliterated  by 
Christ^s  new  revelation  to  man  of  his  rela- 
tion to  his  brother. 

(3)    I  believe  also  in  the  deity  of  Christ 

[28] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

not  only  on  the  ground  of  His  teaching- 
about  God  and  man  but  also  because  of 
His  ethical  teaching.  We  have  conceded 
far  too  much  in  the  study  of  comparative 
ethics  to  the  non-Chrisdan  religions.  Not 
only  are  the  non-Christian  religions  desti- 
tute of  our  LxDrd's  great  teaching  about  God 
and  man,  but  they  do  not  have  in  them 
those  fundamental  moral  principles  which 
Christ  brought  into  the  world,  and  over 
which  He  poured  a  whole  flood  of  illuminat- 
ing glory  from  God.  Take  Christ's  great 
ethical  conceptions,  such  as  truth  and  duty 
and  purity  and  love  and  righteousness,  and 
where  can  you  find  in  any  of  the  non-Chris- 
tian religions  any  great  moral  conceptions 
corresponding  to,  or  that  anywhere  ap- 
proach the  great  moral  ideas  which  Jesus 
Christ  brought  into  the  world  and  which 
He  both  taught  and  lived.  We  can  rest 
our  argument  for  the  deity  of  Christ,  for 
His  absolute  separateness  from  man,  on  the 
ground  of  the  magnitude  and  uniqueness 
of  His  contribution  to  the  moral  life  alone. 
On  God  and  man  and  morals  He  has  spoken 
the  last  word.  **  The  attempt  to  add  to  or 
[29] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

improve  on  the  teaching  of  Christ/^  Lord 
Avebury  recognizes,  *'  seems  vain  and  even 
arrogant.'^  On  the  ground,  accordingly, 
not  only  of  what  He  was,  but  also  of  what 
He  taught,  I  believe  in  the  deity  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

in.  In  the  third  place,  not  alone  on  the 
ground  of  His  character  and  doctrine,  but 
on  the  ground  of  the  acts  which  He  did 
while  here  on  earth,  I  believe  in  the  deity 
of  Christ.  I  am  not  speaking  now  of  His 
miracles  on  nature,  though  I  have  no 
trouble  with  them;  they  are  exactly  the 
things  I  believe  God  incarnate  in  human 
flesh  would  do.  But  I  pass  them  by  to 
speak  about  what  He  did  on  human  life. 
There  is  the  miracle  of  His  influence  on 
the  twelve  apostles.  He  took  those  men — 
barring,  of  course,  the  one  who  failed  Him 
— ignorant,  unlettered,  with  no  early  ad- 
vantages, fishermen  many  of  them,  adult 
men  when  He  took  them  under  His  in- 
fluence, and  He  made  these  hard  men  the 
finest  gentlemen  of  His  time.  He  sent  out 
these  eleven  ignorant,  uninfiuential  men  to 
shake  the  world.  He  made  them  the  foun- 

[30] 


The  Deity   of  Christ 

dations  on  which  He  built  His  indestruc- 
tible kingdom.  Where  could  you  find  a 
greater  miracle  than  that?  Hepaade  other 
men  and  women  also,  and^is  work  on 
life  was  crowned  at  the  last  by  the  out- 
standing miracle  of  His  own  resurrection. 
I  believe  there  is  no  fact  in  history  better 
attested  than  our  Lord's  resuirection.  It 
rests  upon  evidences  stronger  than  any 
other  evidences  that  we  have  of  any  other 
event,  as  strong  as  the  evidence  we  have 
for  what  took  place  on  the  fourth  of  July, 
1776.  And  I  believe  that  we  may  rest  as 
securely  on  the  evidences  of  the  resurrec- 
tion as  we  may  on  the  evidences  that  there 
was  ever  a  Declaration  of  Independence. 
You  say,  we  have  it  now.  I  say,  we  have 
a  living  Christ  now.  You  say,  men  saw 
signed.  I  say,  men  saw  Him  rise.  You 
say  there  is  a  nation  living  whose  existence 
testifies  to  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. I  say,  there  is  a  kingdom  of  Christ 
in  existence  that  bears  witness  to  the  fact 
that  something  lifted  it  out  of  the  death  in 
which  it  lay  when  He  hung  upon  His  cross. 
It  was   saved  by  nothing  less  than  His 

[31] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 


rising  again  from  the  dead.  Without  a 
risen  Christ  there  is  no  adequate  explana- 
tion of  the  resurrection  of  Christianity. 
You  say  the  historic  evidence  does  noty 
satisfy  every  one.  I  say,  it  convinces  all 
who  would  be  convinced  if  they  saw  Him 
rise  with  their  own  eyes.  Because  of  what 
He  did  while  here  upon  the  earth,  I  be- 
lieve Him  to  be  the  Son  of  God,,  -^ 

IV.  Further,  I  believe  in  the  deity  of 
Christ  because  of  His  posthumous  in- 
fluence. He  is  doing  in  the  world  still 
things  just  as  wonderful  as  anything  He 
did  in  the  world  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago.  Napoleon  turned  once  at  St.  Helena 
to  Count  Montholon  with  the  inquiry, 
"  Can  you  tell  me  who  Jesus  Christ  was?  '* 
The  question  was  declined,  and  Napoleon 
proceeded,  **Well,  then,  I  will  tell  you. 
Alexander,  Csesar,  Charlemagne,  and  I 
have  founded  great  empires,  but  upon 
what  did  these  creations  of  our  genius  de- 
pend? Upon  force  1  Jesus  alone  founded 
His  empire  upon  love,  and  to  this  very 
day  millions  would  die  for  Him.  ...  I 
think   I  understand  something  of  human 

[32] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

nature,  and  I  tell  you  all  these  were  men 
and  I  am  a  man.  None  else  is  like  Him. 
Jesus  Christ  was  more  than  a  man.  .  .  . 
I  have  inspired  multitudes  with  such  a  de- 
votion that  they  would  have  died  for  me, 
.  .  .  but  to  do  this  it  was  necessary 
that  I  should  be  visibly  present,  with  the 
electric  influences  of  my  looks,  of  my 
words,  of  my  voice.  When  I  saw  men 
and  spoke  to  them  I  lighted  up  the  flames 
of  self-devotion  in  their  hearts.  .  .  . 
Christ  alone  has  succeeded  in  so  raising 
the  mind  of  man  towards  the  unseen  that 
it  becomes  insensible  to  the  barriers  of 
time  and  space.  Across  a  chasm  of  eight- 
een hundred  years  Jesus  Christ  makes  a 
demand  which  is,  above  all  others,  difficult 
to  satisfy.  He  asks  for  that  which  a  phi- 
losopher may  often  seek  in  vain  at  the 
hands  of  his  friends,  or  a  father  of  his  chil- 
dren, or  a  bride  of  her  spouse,  or  a  man  of 
his  brother.  He  asks  for  the  human  heart 
He  will  have  it  entirely  to  Himself.  He 
demands  it  unconditionally,  and  forthwith 
His  demand  is  granted.  Wonderful !  In 
defiance  of  time  and  space,  the  soul   of 

[33] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

man  with  all  its  powers  becomes  an  an- 
nexation to  the  empire  of  Christ.  All  who 
sincerely  believe  in  Him  experience  that 
remarkable  supernatural  love  towards 
Him.  This  phenomenon  is  unaccount- 
able ;  it  is  altogether  beyond  the  scope  of 
man^s  creative  powers.  Time,  the  great 
destroyer,  is  powerless  to  extinguish  the 
sacred  flame  ;  time  can  neither  exhaust  its 
strength  nor  put  a  limit  to  its  range.  This 
it  is  which  strikes  me  most.  I  have  often 
thought  of  it.  This  it  is  which  proves  to 
me  quite  conclusively  the  divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ.'^ 

We  see  to-day  in  the  world  a  work  be- 
ing done  that  no  man  could  do.  Julius 
Caesar  is  not  raising  dead  men  to-day, 
Martin  Luther  is  not  taking  men  dead  in 
trespasses  and  sins  and  washing  them 
white  as  the  very  snows,  redeeming  them 
to  new  and  powerful  life.  Christ  is  doing 
that  to-day.  He  is  taking  the  roue  and 
the  debauchee  out  of  the  gutter,  and  He 
is  making  them  pure  and  sending  them 
out  with  cleansed  consciences  to  do  the 
work  of  men  in  the  world.     He  is  taking 

[34] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

the  weakling,  the  man  or  woman  with 
no  strength  of  character,  without  enough 
strength  of  passion  to  go  down  into  the 
gutter,  and  He  moulds  them  to  strength 
and  usefulness.  And  He  is  redeeming 
good  people,  which  is  the  most  wonderful 
thing  of  all.  He  is  taking  the  proud  and  the 
selfish  and  the  pitiless.  He  is  taking  the  rich 
who  have  everything  and  do  not  know  that 
they  are  poor,  the  clothed  who  think  they 
are  clothed  and  do  not  know  that  they  are 
naked, — Christ  is  taking  them  and  reveal- 
ing the  realities  of  their  own  life  to  them 
and  giving  them  the  realities  of  His  life. 
And  what  no  man  ever  did — Christ  is  re- 
leasing men  from  the  shame  and  guilt  of 
sin  as  well  as  delivering  them  from  its 
fMDwer.  This  work  which  we  see  Christ 
doing  to-day  in  the  lives  of  men  is  no  hu- 
man work. /To-day,  as  of  old,  Christ  is 
transforming  being,  doing  the  work  of  God 
on  the  life  of  man. 

Christ  is  still,  as  He  has  always  been, 
the  great  transformer  of  the  life  of  the 
world.  We  cannot  explain  the  influence 
with  which  Christ  has  wrought  upon  the 

[35] 


The    Deity   of  Christ 

life  of  the  world  on  the  theory  of  His 
merely  naturalistic  character.  Buddhism, 
Hinduism,  Confucianism,  Mohammedan- 
ism by  their  results  have  proved  that  their 
founders  were  not  divine.  But  Christ  has 
been  doing  here  a  work  only  God  could 
do.  He  has  changed  the  world.  He  has 
reconstructed  human  society.  He  has  cre- 
ated and  sustained  the  highest  moral  life. 
His  living  principles  have  ordered  all 
human  progress,  /it  is  far  more  irrational 
to  attribute  these  effects  to  inadequate 
causes  than  it  is  to  say  that  they  must 
have  a  cause  adequate  to  produce  them. 
They  are  the  work  of  God ;  by  the  hand 
of  God  they  must  have  been  done.  Those 
who  have  experienced  them  in  their  own 
souls  know  that  it  was  by  God  in  Christ 
that  they  were  done. 

V.  And  now,  last  of  all,  why  is  it  that 
if  we  have  grounds  for  belief  in  the  deity 
of  Christ  such  as  these  there  are  so  many 
men  and  women  who  do  not  believe  that 
Christ  is  the  Son  of  God?  Well,  in  the 
first  place,  some  of  them  have  never  done 
any  thinking  about  it.    They  have  listened 

[36] 


The   Deity   of  C hrist 

to  what  other  people  have  said,  and  what 
the  other  people  have  said  was  only  what 
they  heard  somebody  else  say.  They  them- 
selves have  never  done  any  real,  conscien- 
tious, consecutive  thinking  about  the  prob- 
lem of  Christ  at  all.  Some  of  our  want  of 
faith  in  Christ  simply  springs  from  shal- 
lowness, superficiality,  or  utter  neglect  of 
any  thinking  about  Christ. 

In  the  second  place,  a  great  many  have 
no  adequate  conception  of  the  person  of 
Christ  simply  because  they  have  never 
studied  the  original  documents.  If  you 
will  saturate  your  mind  and  heart  with  the 
four  Gospels  for  twelve  months,  if  you  will 
read  them  through,  all  four  every  week, 
and  not  only  read  them  but  dwell  upon 
the  character  of  Christ  as  it  comes  out 
there,  letting  your  imagination  play  with 
the  freedom  of  the  Spirit  of  life  upon  that 
life  of  Christ,  that  word  of  Christ,  that 
personality  of  Christ,  you  will  come  back 
twelve  months  from  now  with  your  faith 
in  the  deity  of  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God 
absolutely  unassailable. 

In  the  third  place,  a  great  many  do  not 
[37] 


"The   Deity  of  Christ 

believe  in  His  deity  simply  because  they 
do  not  know  how  absolutely  the  world 
needs  God  incarnate  in  the  flesh.  I  have 
a  dear  friend,  who  says  that  he  never 
realized  how  it  must  be  that  Christ  was 
the  Son  of  God  until  during  his  university 
course  he  went  down  to  work  in  the  county 
jail.  Sunday  after  Sunday  as  he  sat  down 
among  the  prisoners  in  that  jail,  among 
men  of  darkened  souls,  men  of  rotted-out 
characters,  men  who  were  hopeless  about 
this  world  and  the  world  to  come,  men 
who  were  as  dead  as  any  man  could  ever 
be  when  his  body  was  laid  down  in  his 
grave,  he  realized  as  he  had  never  realized 
before  that,  if  there  never  had  been  an 
incarnation,  by  the  very  character  of  God 
there  must  be  one ;  because  it  was  neces- 
sary that  there  should  come  into  the  world 
somewhere  and  some  time  that  great  re- 
lease of  divine  and  transforming  power 
without  which  the  world  in  its  death  could 
never  live.  We  believe  it  came  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago  once  for  all  in  Jesus  of 
Nazareth. 

And  lastly,  there  are  men  and  women 
[33] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 


who  do  not  believe  in  the  deity  of  Christ 

simply  because  they  have  never  tried  Him. 

The  deity  of  Christ  is  not  a  mere  doctrine 

or  proposition.     It   is  a  living  theory  of 

[  being,  and  the  way  you  test  it  is  not  alone 

to  go  back  and   examine  all   these  evi- 

'^^"Mces    which    we     have    been    running 

T  in  this  hasty  and   inadequate  way. 

ill      way    you    test    it   is    to  try  Christ 

w      !].  r   He  is  what  He  claims  to  be.     I 

,  supij'  >se  that  many  of  you  read  in  an  issue 

of    The  Sunday-School  Times  last   winter 

)f.  Edward  Everett  Hale's  article  on  the 

: mge  wrought  in  him  by  his  experience 

'  r  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God.     He  had 

t  grown  up  to  believe  in  the  deity  of 

rist — far  otherwise.     But  he  had  done 

thinking  for  himself,  and  at  last  he  came 

'  night  in  a  litde  prayer-meeting  in  the 

'  of  Schenectady,  where  he  lived,  to  the 

lit  where  he  made  up  his  mind  that  the 

y  way  to  find  out  was  to  experiment. 

put  Christ  to  the  test  and  he  found  Him 

inely    true   and  truly  divine.     If  what 

i     have    said     here    could    only    so    far 

remove  the   intellectual  difficulties  which 

[39] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 


any  of  you  may  feel  as  to  make  it  pos- 
sible for  you  to  put  Christ  to  the  test,  you 
too  would  find  Him  true. 

No  one  leaned  on  Him  in  vain  when  He 
was  here ;  no  one  leans  on  Him  in  vain 
to-day.  Would  that  we  might  see  Him  in 
the  fullness  of  His  glory  as  He  is :  Son  of 
Man,  indeed,  Son  of  God  as  well;  Son 
of  Man  because  only  so  could  God  ever 
come  near  us  and  lay  hold  of  our  lives 
and  assure  us  that  His  will  for  us  was  what 
we  see  in  Christ ;  Son  of  God  because  only 
so  could  we  ever  get  strength  to  rise  into 
God.  ''  Who  say  ye  that  I  am  ?  ''  was  the 
question  He  asked  Simon  Peter  by  Caes- 
area  Philippi  of  old.  **And  who  say  ye 
that  I  am?'^  is  the  question  He  is  asking 
of  each  of  us  here  now.  God  grant  that 
the  same  Father  who  revealed  the  truth 
to  Simon  Peter  that  day  may  enable  us  to 
behold  the  truth  to-day,  that  we  may  an- 
swer as  he  answered,  *'  Thou  art  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God."  That  is  what 
He  is.     Is  He  that  to  us  ? 


[40] 


Three    Supplementary  Notes 


I         On  Christ's  Self- Assertion  and  Lowli- 
ness 

'T       On  the  Inadequacy  of  the  Unitarian 
View 

ill.     Professor  Edward  Everett  Hale*s  Ex- 
perience 


Note  I 

On   Christ's  Self-Assertion  and  Lowliness 

THE    late    Richard    Holt   Hutton, 
Editor  of  The   Spectator,   in   his 
essay  on  "  Christian  Evidences/' 
speaks    of    the   supernaturalness 
Christ^s    foresight    in    perceiving  that 
se  extraordinary  claims  of  His  would 
accepted    by  men    and    be  found  by 
m   to  be  entirely  consistent  with  His 
1    vliness  of  soul.     "That   Christ  should 
iiive  understood  the  personal  relation  in 
which  His  immediate  disciples  would  stand 
♦  >  Him/'  says  Mr.  Hutton, "  was  perhaps  a 
re  instance  of  discernment  such  as,  no 
(1  )iibt,  many  great  men  have  shown.     But 
thit  He  should  deliberately  have  demanded 
same  kind  of  attitude  towards  Himself 
m  all  future  disciples,  as  He  certainly 
1,  and  have  gained  what  He  asked  in 
•  very  act,  does  seem  to  me  one  of  the 
vu*est  marks  of  supernatural  knowledge 
the  human  heart  which  could  be  given. 
Nothing  could   be   more  hazardous  than 
this  emphasis  laid  by  any  human  being — 

rpecially    one   who   from   the   very    fw^X. 
eaches  lowliness  of  heart,  and  predicts  the 
[43] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

shortness  of  His  life  and  the  ignominious 
violence  of  His  end — on  Himself  as  the 
source  of  an  enduring  power,  and  the 
corner-stone  of  a  divine  kingdom.  The 
necessity  of  loving  Him,  the  perpetual 
fame  of  her  who  anointed  Him  for  His 
burial,  the  grief  that  will  be  rightly  felt  for 
Him  when  He  leaves  the  earth,  the  identi- 
lication  of  men^s  duty  to  each  other,  even 
to  *  the  least  of  these,  My  brethren,*  with 
their  duty  to  Him, — all  these  are  assump- 
tions which  run  through  the  whole  Gospel 
quite  as  strikingly  as  does  the  clear  knowl- 
edge of  the  frailty  of  the  human  materials 
Christ  has  chosen,  and  of  the  supernatural 
character  of  the  power  by  which  He  in- 
tended to  vivify  those  means.  Though 
His  kingdom  is  to  be  the  kingdom  of 
which  a  little  child  is  the  type,  the  king- 
dom in  which  it  is  the  *  meek  ^  who  are 
blessed,  in  which  it  is  the  *  poor  in  spirit  * 
who  are  to  be  the  rulers,  yet  in  this  He  is 
only  saying  in  other  words  that  He  is  to  be 
the  life  of  it,  since  it  is  because  He  is  *  meek 
and  lowly  in  heart  *  that  those  who  come  to 
Him  shall  find  rest  to  their  souls.  Whether 
you  choose  to  say  that  it  is  in  spite  of  this 
humility  or  because  of  this  humility,  yet  in 
either  case  Christ  proclaims  Himself  as  the 
true  object  of  love,  and  the  permanent 
centre  of  power  throughout  the  kingdom 

[44] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

He  proclaims.  He  not  only  declares  that 
His  departure  will  be  the  first  legitimate 
cause  of  mourning  to  His  followers — *  Can 
the  children  of  the  bride-chamber  mourn  as 
long  as  the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ?  But 
the  days  will  come  when  the  bridegroom 
shall  be  taken  from  them,  and  then  shall 
they  fast ' — but  even  to  all  others  the  love 
of  Him  is  to  predominate  over  all  other 
love.  *  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother 
more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me,  and  he 
that  loveth  son  or  daughter  more  than  Me 
is  not  worthy  of  Me.'  Exclusion  from  His 
presence  is  everywhere  treated  as  that 
outer  darkness  where  there  are  weeping 
and  gnashing  of  teeth.  His  vision  of  the 
spiritual  future  of  untrue  men  is  of  men  cry- 
ing to  Him,  *  Lord,  Lord  1 '  and  entreating 
Him  to  recognize  them,  to  whom  He  will  be 
compelled  to  say,  *  I  never  knew  you  :  de- 
part from  Me,  ye  that  work  iniquity.'  He 
justifies  with  warmth  all  honour  paid  to 
Him  personally ;  *  The  poor  ye  have  al- 
ways with  you,  but  Me  ye  have  not  al- 
ways ; '  '  Verily  I  say  wherever  this  gospel 
shadl  be  preached  in  the  whole  world,  there 
shall  also  this,  which  this  woman  hath 
done,  be  told  for  a  memorial  of  her.'  Is 
not  that  most  hazardous  policy  for  any  one 
not  endowed  with  supernatural  knowledge? 
Consider  only  what  usually  comes  with  self- 

[45] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

assertion  much  less  astounding  than  this  in 
a  human  being,  and  yet  what  actually 
came  of  it  in  our  Lord^s  case.  The  greatest 
of  the  world's  teachers  made  light  of  them- 
selves. Socrates  treats  his  own  death  as 
of  no  moment.  The  Jewish  prophets  never 
think  of  treating  their  own  careers  as  of 
any  significance  apart  from  the  message 
they  deliver.  And  as  a  rule  in  the  world, 
when  a  man  magnifies  himself  with  gentle- 
ness and  simplicity,  we  smile  ;  we  may  find 
him  lovable,  but  there  is  always  a  little 
laughter  mingled  with  our  love.  When 
he  does  it  arrogantly  or  imperiously,  we 
are  revolted.  In  either  case,  the  first 
generation  which  does  not  personally 
know  him  puts  aside  his  pretentions  as 
irrelevant,  if  not  even  fatal,  to  his  great- 
ness. But  how  was  it  with  Christ  ?  The 
first  great  follower  who  had  never  known 
Him  in  the  flesh,  St.  Paul,  takes  up  this 
very  note  as  the  key-note  of  the  new  world. 
To  him,  '  to  live  is  Christ,  to  die  is  gain.' 
His  heart  is  *  hid  with  Christ  in  God.'  His 
cry  is,  *  Not  I,  but  Christ  that  worketh 
in  me.*  He  makes  his  whole  religious 
philosophy  turn  on  the  teaching  of  our 
Lord,  that  He  is  the  Vine,  and  His  disci- 
ples the  branches.  In  the  land  of  the  olive 
St.  Paul  adapts  the  image  to  the  husbandry 
of  the  olive.     Again,  Christ  is  the  Head^ 

[46] 


J 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

and  men  the  members.     And  what  is  true  of 

St.  Paul  is  true  of  all  those  in  whom  the 

Christian  faith  has  shown  its  highest  genius 

in   subsequent   ages.      These   sayings   of 

Christ  as  to  Himself  the  centre  of  human 

ctions  and  the  light  of  human  lives,  in- 

id  of  repelling  men,  interpret  their  own 

hest  experience,  and  «K?em  but  the  voice 

m  interior  truth  and  the  assurance  of  an 

;>erishable  joy.*' 


[47] 


Note  II 

On  the  Inadequacy  of  the  Unitarian  View 

THERE  are  deeper  considerations 
than  these  of  which  I  have 
spoken  for  rejecting  the  Unita- 
rian view  of  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Mr.  Hutton  sets  these  forth  as  the 
reason  for  Maurice's  departure  from  the 
Unitarianism  of  his  father.  *'  What  then," 
asks  he  in  an  essay  on  ''  Maurice  and  the 
Unitarians,"  **is  meant  by  saying  that 
Maurice's  rejection  of  Unitarianism  was 
the  result  of  an  ardent  yearning  after  a 
centre  of  more  perfect  unity  with  others, — 
others  generally  differing  from  himself, — 
than  he  had  ever  been  able  to  find  in  Uni- 
tarianism ?  It  means  just  this,  that 
Maurice  regarded  the  self-revelation  of 
God  within  whose  eternal  nature  there 
something  more  complex  and  more  myS" 
terious  than  merely  lonely  will  and  lonelj 
power,  as  the  best  guarantee  of  which  h< 
could  conceive  for  the  mutual  aflectioni 
and  the  mutual  forbearances  of  humai 
society  ;  and  that  he  believed  that  such  j 
gradual  revelation  was  actually  made  tc 
man  in  the  Providential  story  of  JewisI 

[48] 


« 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

history  as  it  culminated  in  the  life  and 
death  and  resurrection  of  Christ  .  .  . 
The  reason  he  was  dissatisfied  with  Uni- 
tarianism  was  simply  this, — that  Unitarian- 
ism,  even  as  his  father  understood  it,  ex- 
plained away  a  great  part  of  the  actual 
revelation  made  by  God  to  man,  and 
therefore  attenuated  its  importance  and 
the  trust  and  hope  with  which  it  inspired 
him.  It  was  not  that  he  thought  himself 
any  holier  than  Unitarians.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  thought  many  Unitarians  holier 
than  himself.  But  he  held  that  the  history 
contained  in  the  Bible  pointed  to  something 
much  more  mysterious  and  much  more 
adequate  to  the  need,  and  guilt,  and  pas- 
sion of  human  nature,  in  the  character  of 
the  divine  life  which  it  revealed,  than  any- 
thing which  the  Unitarians  could  find  in 
that  histoiy,  and  therefore  he  held  the 
Unitarian  interpretation  of  that  history  to 
be  a  pallid  one,  which  missed  a  good  part 
of  its  true  burden,  and  especially  that  part 
of  it  which  is  most  essential  to  promote  the 
true  unity  of  men,  and  to  add  depth  and 
intensity  to  the  social  relations.  He  ad- 
mits in  a  letter  to  his  father  that  Uni- 
tarian ism  is  a  much  simpler  account  of  the 
elation  given  in  the  Bible  than  his  own 
ii.  But  then,  what  it  gains  in  sim- 
plicity it  loses  in  adequacy,  both  as  re- 

[49] 


T^he   Deity   of  Christ 

gards  the  actual  language  of  Scripture, 
and  also  as  regards  that  actual  life  in 
man  in  its  appeal  to  which  the  language 
of  Scripture  is  so  potent.  *  It  is  simpler/ 
he  says,  '  to  believe  in  a  Great  Spirit  with 
the  North  American  Indians,  it  is  simpler 
to  worship  wood  and  stone ;  but  what  is 
the  worth  of  simplicity,  if  it  does  not  sat- 
isfy wants  which  we  feel,  if  it  does  not  lead 
us  up  to  the  truth  which  we  desire?' 
The  prophecies  of  the  many  predecessors 
of  Christ  were  to  Maurice  unintelligible,  if 
they  represented  nothing  but  the  fore- 
shadowings  of  a  great  *  exemplar,'  and  the 
life  of  Christ  was  still  less  intelligible  as 
the  mere  life  of  that  great  exemplar. 
Either  this  long  history,  with  its  great 
catastrophe,  meant  something  a  great 
deal  more  expressive  of  that  groaning  and 
travailing  of  creation  to  which  Paul  re- 
ferred, than  the  coming  of  an  exemplar,  or 
else  a  great  deal  less  than  the  Unitarianism 
of  the  elder  Maurice  represented  it  to  be. 
Maurice  believed  that  it  meant  a  great 
deal  more,  and  not  a  great  deal  less,  than 
his  father  and  the  Unitarians  generally  un- 
derstood by  it ;  that  it  meant  the  deliber- 
ate unfolding  of  the  nature  and  life  of  God 
with  such  power  and  passion  as  to  inspire 
in  man  a  transforming  trust  and  a  uniting 
love.     Maurice  did  not,  of  course,  expect 

[50] 


The    Deity   of  Christ 

that  any  theological  belief  could  be  the 
centre  of  unity  ;  but  he  did  expect  that,  if 
God  were  what  he  held  that  Scripture  de- 
clared God  to  be,  God  Himself  would  be 
that  centre  of  unity,  because  it  showed 
God  to  be  spending  on  the  reconciliation 
of  men  to  Himself  the  infinite  stores  of 
that  divine  passion  of  which  we  find  our 
only  adequate  type  in  Gethsemane  and  on 
Calvary.'*  The  Incarnation,  as  Mr.  Hut- 
ton,  who  himself  had  passed  over  from  tlie 
Unitarian  view  to  an  absolute  acceptance 
of  the  deity  of  Christ,  argues  elsewhere,  in 
"The  Incarnation  and  Principles  of  Evi- 
dence,'* is  necessary  to  reveal  to  us,  as  I 
have  already  declared  it  did  reveal  to  us, 
both  the  nature  of  God  and  the  nature  of 
man.  We  know  neither  God  nor  our- 
selves apart  from  the  divine  Christ  "  I 
believe  then/'  says  Mr.  Hutton,  **  that  the 
revelation  of  God  through  an  Eternal  Son 
would  realize  to  us,  if  it  can  be  adequately 
believed,  that  the  relation  of  God  to  us  is 
only  the  manifestation  of  His  life  in  itself, 
as  it  was  or  would  be  without  us — 
•  before  all  worlds,'  as  the  theologians 
say ;  that  *  before  all  worlds,'  He  was 
essentially  the  Father,  essentially  Love, 
essentially  something  infinitely  more  than 
Knowledge  or  Power,  essentially  com- 
municating and  receiving  a  living  affec- 

[51] 


The   Deity    of  Christ       \ 

tlon,  essentially  all  that  the  heart  can  de-  : 
sire.  This  is  not,  then,  relative  truth  for  "\ 
us  only,  but  the  truth  as  it  is  in  itself,  the  \ 
reality  of  Infinite  Being.  It  is  first  pro-  i 
claimed  to  us,  indeed,  to  save  us  from  sin,  I 
strengthen  us  in  frailty,  and  lift  us  above  \ 
ourselves ;  but  it  could  not  do  this  as  it  j 
does,  did  we  not  know  that  God  was,  and  | 
His  love  was,  and  His  Fatherly  Life  was,  \ 
apart  from  man,  and  that  it  is  a  reality  \ 
infinitely  deeper  and  vaster  than  the  exist-  i 
ence  of  His  human  children. 

**  And  it  seems  to  me  that  to  know  God 
to  be  in  His  own  essential  nature  a  Father,  ; 
not  merely  a  Father  to  us,  is  a  very  great  i 
step  towards  exalting  the  whole  tone  of  our  \ 
actual  life.  We  are  apt  to  take  the  word  ; 
*  Father  ^  as  metaphorical  in  its  application  ■ 
to  God — a  metaphor  derived  from  human  ] 
parentage.  But  such  a  faith  teaches  us  : 
that  the  most  sacred  human  relations,  \ 
which  we  feel  to  be  far  deeper  than  any  j 
individual  and  solitary  human  attributes,  | 
are  but  faint  shadows  of  realities  eternally  | 
existing  in  the  divine  mind.  It  is  custom-  ; 
ary  in  many  philosophical  schools  to  re-  i 
gard  the  *  absoluteness '  of  God,  the  ab-  • 
sence  of  all  relation  to  Him,  as  a  part  of  \ 
His  divine  privilege.  To  me  such  a  con-  \ 
ception  appears  essentially  atheistic,  if  \ 
really  thought  out,  though,  of  course,  prac-  \ 

[52]  ! 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

tically  consistent  with  the  most  genuine  \ 

and  fervent  piety.    J  udaism  never  did  thin  k  • 

it  out  without  hovering  on  the  very  margin  ] 

of  the  discovery  which  Christ  made  to  us.  j 

That  discovery  was,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  ] 

one  aspect  of  it — that  aspect  in  which  it  | 

could  be  made  only  through  an  Eternal  \ 

Son  of  God — this  : — *  Never  try  to  think  of  j 

Me/  it  seems  to  say,  *  as  a  mere  Sovereign  | 

Will ;  never  try  to  conceive  My  Infinitude  I 

as  exclusive  of  all  divine  life,  except  My  \ 

own ;  My  infinitude  is  not  exclusive  but  ; 

spiritual,  and  includes  the  fullness  of  all  ^ 
spiritual  life,  eternal  love.     Think  of  Me  as 
always  communicating  life,  and  love,  and 

power — as  always  receiving  love.     Never  - 

pronounce  the  word  **  God  '*  without  recog-  \ 

nizing  that  diversity  of  reciprocal  life  which  \ 

is  the  highest  life — the  reconciliation  of  life  i 
overflowing  and  returning,  which  cannot 

be  without  a  perfect  union  of  distinct  per-  i 
sonalities.' 

"The  Incarnation,  if  believable,  seems 

to  me  to  throw  a  strong  light  on  the  seem-  i 

ing  contradictions  of  human  nature — con-  ; 
tradictions  which  are  only  brought  out  into 

sharper  relief  by  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  \ 

Creator.     The  more  we  acknowledge  the  j 

greatness  of  God,  the  more  are  we  per-  ; 

plexed  by  contending  thoughts  as  to  the  ; 

nature  of  man.     The  knowledge  we  have  \ 

[53]  ! 


T^he   Deity    of  Christ 

gained  only  humiliates  and  crushes  us,  or 
produces  an  artificial  elation.     We  either 
crouch  with  the  highest  of  purely  Jewish  ' 
minds,    or    become   urbanely   self-content 
with  the  Pelagian-Unitarian  thinkers.     We 
either  cry,  *  Woe  is  me  !  for  I  am  undone, 
because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips ;  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of 
hosts  I '  or  we  congratulate  ourselves  that  I 
we  are,  by  inherent  right,  children  of  God, 
*  born  good,'  as  Lord  Palmerston  said,  and 
have  no  profound  need,  therefore,  of  puri-  ; 
fication    at    all.     The   humiliation    alone, 
and  the  exaltation  alone,  are  alike  false  to  \ 
the  facts  within  us  and  destructive  of  the 
true  springs  of  human  hope.     The  '  coal 
from  the  altar '  which  purified  Isaiah's  lips 
v»'as  a  special  deliverance  from  the  abject 
humiliation  of  Oriental  self-abasement — a 
kind  of  deliverance  which  is  not  universal  ; 
enough  for  mankind ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  persuasion  that  we  ourselves  are, 
in   our  own  right,  children  of  God,  is  a  \ 
graver    delusion    in   the   other   direction. 
What  we  want  is  some  universal  fountain 
of  divine  life  within  us  which  shall  yet  not  ' 
blind  us  in  any  way  to  the  truth  that  we  : 
ourselves  are  not  by  our  own  right  children 
of  God,  but  only  become  so  through  One  i 
who  is.     We  need  a  reconciliation  of  the  i 
fact  of  the  unhealthy  egoism  of  our  own  ■ 

[54]  i 


The   Deity  of  Christ 

individualities,  with  the  equally  certain 
fact  of  a  divine  Light  struggling  with  that 
egoism,  and  claiming  us  as  true  children 
of  God. 

"The  Incarnation  alone  helps  us  ade- 
quately to  understand  ourselves  ;  it  recon- 
ciles the  language  of  servile  humiliation 
with  the  language  of  rightful  children. 
Both  are  true.  The  unclean  slave  and  the 
free  child  of  heaven  are  both  within  us. 
The  Incarnation  shows  us  the  true  Child  of 
God — the  filial  will  which  never  lost  its 
majesty,  which  never  tasted  the  impurity 
of  human  sin — and  so  still  further  abases 
us ;  but  then  it  shows  Him  as  the  incarnate 
revelation  of  that  Eternal  Son  and  Word, 
whose  filial  light  and  life  can  stream  into 
and  take  possession  of  us,  with  power  to 
make  us  like  Himself.  The  Incarnation 
alone  seems  to  me  adequately  to  reconcile 
the  contradictory  facts  of  a  double  nature 
in  man — the  separate  individuality  which 
has  no  health  of  its  own,  and  turns  every 
principle  to  evil  directly  it  begins  to  re- 
volve on  its  own  axis — and  the  divine  na- 
ture which  lends  it  a  true  place  and  true 
subordination  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 
*  We  are  not,'  said  Athanasius,  *  by  nature 
sons  of  God,  but  the  Son  in  us  makes  us 
so ;  also,  God  is  not  by  nature  our  Father, 
but  He  is  the  Father  of  the  Word,  dwelling 

[55] 


"The    Deity    of  C hrist 

— 

in  us ;  for  in  Him  and  through  Him  we  \ 
cry,  **  Abba,  Father.'^  *  It  is  obvious  thati 
Athanasius  uses  the  word  *  nature '  here  in  \ 
a  much  narrower  sense  than  Bishop  Butler.  \ 
In  the  largest  sense  it  is  our  true  '  nature '  ; 
to  live  in  and  through  the  Eternal  Word. ; 
But  what  Athanasius  meant — namely,  that  ■ 
not  by  virtue  of  anything  in  our  own  strict  \ 
personality  or  individuality,  only  by  virtue  i 
of  the  divine  life  engrafted  upon  that  per-  \ 
sonality  or  individuality,  do  we  become! 
sons  of  God — seems  to  me  the  very  truth  : 
which  St.  John  reveals : — '  He  came  unto  \ 
His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him  not ; ' 
but  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  themj 
gave  He  power  to  become  sons  of  God.'  \ 
This  teaching,  and  this  alone,  seems  to  I 
vindicate  the  divine  nature  in  us  without  ^ 
lea^ijlg  us  into  the  delusion  that  it  is  ^us.^'  \ 
It  is  no  mere  figure  of  speech  to  declare  ' 
that  without  Christ,  understood  as  He : 
represented  Himself  and  as  the  Church  \ 
has  conceived  Him,  humanity  is  lost^^It  is' 
without  the  knowledge  of  God.  It  is  with-^ 
out  the  knowledge  of  itself.  It  is  true  that  \ 
great  multitudes  have  some  part  of  thisj 
knowledge  who  yet  do  not  accept  Jesus: 
Christ  as  the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  but  they  \ 
would  not  have  it  if  He  had  not  been  the  \ 
Eternal  Son  of  God  and  brought  thisj 
knowledge  into  the  world. 

[56]  j 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

But  it  is  not  only  the  knowledge  of  God 
which  Christ  gives  us.  It  is  God.  The 
healing  of  sin  in  us,  the  removal  of  its 
burden,  the  dissipation  of  its  darkness,  the 
sense  of  pardon  and  forgiveness, — these 
things  which  no  man  could  ever  give  to  us 
Jesus  gave  to  men  when  He  was  here  and 
is  giving  to  men  still.  And  He  gave  them 
then  and  is  giving  them  now  because  He 
was  able  as  God  to  deal  with  sin  and  the 
soul  bowed  under  sin  as  no  man  could 
deal 


[57] 


Note  III 

Professor  Edward  Everett  Hale^s  Ex- 
perience 

PERHAPS  it  will  help  you  to  read 
now  a  part  of  Professor  Hale^s  ac- 
count. It  confirms  the  views  I  have 
quoted  from  Mr.  Hutton :  **  In 
earlier  days/*  writes  Mr.  Hale,  referring 
especially  to  John  3 :  16,  "  the  Gospel  of 
John  was  without  interest  to  me.  That 
seems  to  me  now  very  natural.  There 
was  comparatively  little  in  it  that  to  me 
bore  the  stamp  of  authenticity,  for  the 
characteristic  events  in  the  life  of  Jesus, 
and  the  accompanying  teaching,  found  no 
particular  answer  in  my  own  experience. 
I  was  just  as  much  puzzled  as  Nicodemus 
at  what  was  said  of  being  born  again.  I 
had  no  particular  sympathy  with  the  unique 
confidence  of  the  man  born  blind  who  had 
received  his  sight.  I  saw  very  little  mean- 
ing even  in  Jesus*  words  of  consolation  to 
Martha  when  she  grieved,  though  she  knew 
her  brother  was  to  rise  again  at  the  last 
day.  There  is  much  in  the  Gospel  so  beau- 
tiful that  it  will  reach  all  hearts ;  but  a  good 
deal  of  it  will,  I  think,  remain  a  pretty  dark 
saying  to  one  who  has  not  tried  the  great 
experiment  of  trusting  everything  to  Jesus 
as  a  living  Saviour,  with  the  expectation 
[58] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

of  gaining  thereby  the  life  that  is  independ- 
ent of  the  conditions  of  every-day  exist- 
ence, and  of  the  death  that  must  come  to  all. 

'*So,  if  I  paid  little  attention  to  this  pas- 
sage, or  even  to  the  whole  Gospel,  it  was 
natural  enough  ;  it  was  probably  even  in- 
evitable. What  should  this  particular  text 
have  meant  to  one  whose  definite  belief 
was  that  Jesus  was  not  the  only  begotten 
Son  of  God,  but  the  greatest  among  many 
sons  ;  who  held  that  it  was  not  by  belief  in 
Jesus  that  one  should  be  saved,  but  rather 
by  incorp)orating  into  one's  own  life  and 
character  the  principles  of  His  teaching ; 
who  did  not  readily  conceive  of  any  real 
perishing  on  the  part  of  those  who  put 
their  trust  elsewhere  than  in  Him  ?  One 
can  see,  I  believe,  that  with  such  a  one  this 
text  had  no  great  weight,  even  though  it 
were  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  but  on  the 
other  hand  that  the  Gospel  lost  something 
by  having  the  text  in  it 

**  On  the  other  hand,  let  it  be  the  case  that 
this  passage  gains  with  a  given  person, 
say,  especial  importance  from  its  appli- 
cation to  the  conditions  of  mission  work  in 
our  cities.  This,  too,  is  not  accidental,  but 
really  very  characteristic.  The  text  is  a 
fine  text  for  its  place  ;  but  the  place  it  holds 
is  a  pretty  typical  one,  and  the  reason  that 
it  is  good  where  it  is,  is  reason  enough  for 

[59] 


The  Deity   of  Christ 

its  being  good  in  other  very  different 
places.  For  suppose  we  do  not  think 
of  it  as  authoritative,  but  simply  as  de- 
clarative :  not  as  a  truth  that  is  true  be- 
cause it  is  expressed  where  it  is  expressed, 
but  a  truth  that  is  so  to  us  because  it  ex- 
presses so  much  that  we  know.  Then  we 
see  that  these  few  words  say  to  us  that 
God  is  not  merely  a  lawgiver,  but  a  Father  ; 
that  Jesus  is  not  merely  an  elder  brother, 
but  a  divine  Saviour  ;  that  the  salvation 
He  offers  is  open  to  any  one  that  will  avail 
himself  of  it ;  that  those  who  will  not  take 
it  are  turning  away  from  the  only  possi- 
bility of  true  life  ;  that  those  who  come  to 
Him  are  thereby  beginning  upon  a  life  that 
is  independent  of  the  conditions  of  time  or 
place  in  this  world  or  any  other.  All  these 
things,  doubtless,  are  things  that  one  wants 
to  impress  on  a  set  of  homeless  men,  hard 
up  or  '  down  and  out,'  who  come  to  a 
mission  meeting  largely  because  it  is  a 
good  warm  place  on  a  cold  night,  and  who 
yet  have  some  pretty  definite  idea  that 
there  is  a  God,  that  they  have  souls,  and 
that  somehow  or  other  they  will  have  to 
make  answer  to  Him  for  their  life  here. 
But  these  things  are  only  good  to  impress 
upon  such  men  because  these  things  are 
also  impressed  on  all  who  accept  Christ  as 
their  Saviour.     They  are  put  on  the  wall 

[60] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

of  a  mission  room  only  because  written  in 
the  hearts  of  all  Christians. 

**  It  is  now  somewhat  more  than  two  years 
since  I  was  called  to  acknowledge  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  living  Saviour.  It  was  at  a  re- 
vival meeting  that  I  did  so,  and  at  the  end 
of  that  meeting  the  general  advice  was 
given  to  those  who  had  just  made  deci- 
sions, to  read  the  Gospel  of  John.  I  remem- 
ber at  the  time  thinking  the  advice  was  by 
no  means  wise  or  to  the  point.  One  will 
easily  see  the  cause  of  that  idea  :  the  Gos- 
pel of  John  had  always  seemed  to  me  im- 
practical, mystical,  philosophical,  by  no 
means  such  as  to  be  read  by  any  one  who 
did  not  have  already  a  pretty  well  grounded 
faith,  and  a  fairly  well  developed  idea  of  the 
essentials  of  Christian  doctrine  and  life.  I 
did  not  at  that  moment  appreciate  the  new 
spirit  with  which  one  would  read  who  had 
just  seen  reason  to  believe  that  Jesus  was 
the  Son  of  God,  and  who  had  in  that  be- 
lief found  himself  at  the  beginning  of  a  new 
life.  I  did  not  understand  that  though  the 
book  was  written  to  induce  belief,  it  yet 
had  infinitely  more  meaning  to  one  who 
already  did  believe. 

**  At  any  rate,  I  did  not  read  it  with  es- 
pecial care  for  some  time.  I  did  read  the 
Bible  with  a  great  and  new  interest :  in- 
deed, for  a  great  while  I  could  not  be  in- 
[6i] 


The   Deity   of  Christ 

terested  in  anything  else,  and  even  now  I 
find  no  book  to  compare  in  interest  with  it, 
or  with  something  that  explains  or  illustrates 
it.  Still  for  various  reasons,  either  because 
there  was  so  much  else  to  read,  or  because 
there  was  so  much  else  to  do,  I  did  not  read 
the  Gospel  of  John  with  care  for  some  time. 

*'  When  I  did  so,  I  was  surprised  to  see 
what  a  simple,  practical,  e very-day  book  it 
was, — how  entirely  different  from  my 
earlier  conceptions.  Matters  which  had 
seemed  inexplicable,  figurative,  exagger- 
ated, or  without  clear  or  definite  meaning, 
were,  I  found,  statements  of  matters  of  ex- 
perience that  I  knew  about.  Incidents  in 
the  lives  of  those  who  had  come  in  contact 
with  Jesus  in  the  flesh  appeared  at  once  to 
be,  in  essentials  at  least,  prototypes  of  in- 
cidents in  the  lives  of  those  who  meet  and 
know  Him  to-day  in  the  spirit  only.  I 
think  Luke  7  :  36-50  was  the  first  Gospel 
story  that  impressed  me  most  forcibly  in 
this  way,  but  among  the  first  was  the  ut- 
terance of  the  blind  man  in  John  9 :  25. 
This  experiential  character,  as  it  may  be 
called,  gave  a  realizing  understanding,  not 
only  to  the  rest  of  the  Bible,  but  particu- 
larly, perhaps,  to  the  Gospel  of  John,  and 
not  only  to  event  or  incident,  but  to  much 
else,  as,  for  example,  this  Golden  Text. 

**  Thus  the  thought  of  God  as  a  God  of 

[62] 


The   Deity  of  Christ 

love :  I  must  confess  that,  in  spite  of  the 
importance  of  this  element  in  my  father's 
preaching,  it  was  never  a  realized  element 
in  my  own  belief.  In  fact,  to-day,  I  do 
not  see  how  God  is  readily  thought  of  as  a 
God  of  love,  save  as  He  is  revealed  to  us 
as  such  by  Jesus.  A  God  of  law  He  was 
to  me,  but  His  law  was  something  external, 
something  to  a  great  degree  arbitrary, 
something  in  fact  that  I  did  not  like.  John 
in  his  epistle  says  that  we  love  God  be- 
cause He  first  loved  us.  Others  may  see 
in  the  order  of  the  universe  and  of  human 
life  sufficient  evidence  of  the  love  of  God 
for  humanity.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  not 
there ;  but  I  did  not  see  it  till  I  saw  the 
love  of  God  revealed  to  us  in  the  life  and 
the  death  and  the  life  everlasting  of  Jesus. 
That  was  a  light  by  which  I  could  see  what 
had  been  there  before,  but  unseen. 

"  So  with  the  rest — it  would  take  too  long 
to  comment  on  the  whole  text — that  Jesus 
is  His  only  begotten  Son  ;  that  anybody 
may  come  to  Him  ;  that  if  one  does  come, 
one  has  life  everlasting  ;  that  if  one  does 
not,  one  has  not  that  life.  All  these  things 
mean  something  to  me  now,  because  they 
are  a  part  of  my  own  experience ;  be- 
cause they  have  become,  not  announce- 
ments of  external  truth,  but  expressions  of 
what  is  the  natural  order  of  my  existence. 

[63] 


The   Deity    of  Christ 

"Jesus  said  that  no  one  comes  to  the 
Father  but  by  Him,  that  He  is  the  way.  It 
is  certainly  so." 

Every  man  may  have  this  experience  if 
he  will.  Whoever  will  make  the  experi- 
ment will  find  Christ  all  that  He  claimed 
to  be,  all  that  the  Church  has  held  Him  to 
be.  You  too  will  be  able  to  say  w^hen  you 
make  the  test,  what  good  Dr.  Bonar  has 
said  in  his  hymn  : 

I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 

*•  Come  unto  Me  and  rest  ; 
Lay  down,  thou  weary  one,  lay  down» 

Thy  head  upon  My  breast." 
I  came  to  Jesus  as  I  was, 

Weary  and  worn  and  sad, 
I  found  in  Him  a  resting  place, 

And  He  has  made  me  glad. 

I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 

*'  Behold  I  freely  give 
The  Uving  water  ;  thirsty  one, 

Stoop  down  and  drink,  and  live." 
I  came  to  Jesus,  and  I  drank 

Of  that  life-giving  stream  ; 
My  thirst  was  quenched,  my  soul  revived, 

And  now  I  live  in  Him. 

I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 

*'  I  am  this  dark  world's  Light ; 
Look  unto  Me,  thy  morn  shall  rise, 

And  all  thy  day  be  bright." 
I  looked  to  Jesus,  and  I  found 

In  Him  my  Star,  my  Sun  ; 
And  in  that  light  of  life  I'll  walk, 

Till  travelling  days  are  done, 

[64] 


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